Ratification in the State Duma lower house of parliament is all but assured as the main pro-Kremlin party holds a two-thirds majority.

Russian ratification will mean that the UN global warming pact will be able to make the jump from a draft 1997 agreement into a working international treaty.

The Russian cabinet decided to approve the treaty, after Moscow spent years hedging its bets, weighing its own economic policies against the broader diplomatic benefits of allying itself closer to Washington, which categorically opposes the pact, or Europe, the protocol's biggest fan.

Russia can make a short-term profit by ratifying the protocol since it will be able to sell some of its quotas for "greenhouse" gas emissions to other industrialized signatories.